I suspect the best two were the 1/2 A Snapper with a Wasp engine, and the Top Flite Baby Flite Streak with an Atwood Shriek and bladder.  I did have one of the P-51s, and as I recall, the airfoil was pretty thin with a sharp leading edge.

My two favorites were the Lil' Jumpin Bean and the Lil' Satan.

      I always thought the Little or Baby Tomahawk was the best flying 1/2 a plane I ever owned and flew. My second favorite and more modern model was Brodak's f-82 twin. Ken

My first was the Scientific Zig Zag and it lasted a long long time, probably had over two hundred flights on it and I have to say I had more fun with it than any other but the one that flew best for me was the Dumas Little Tomahawk.

Robert

My own SkyWriter (yes, kitted).

WOWee!

George

(My own SkyWriter (yes, kitted))
uhm maybe I should have provided a cutoff date to the question ?


Hey MM the lightning doesn't qualify. I said "what was Your best flying 1/2A" I know that that plane never flew in the 1980'S.
..You arent that young to say you just started since 2000 are you ?
Matter fact from what I remember if you were interested in flying 1/2A stunt the engine of choice was a tee dee or an exotic nthat was quite expensive. It wasnt till the norvell came out that I think there was a real choice that was something anybody could get.

What did the Snapper look like? I don't recall it from those days of my "youth" .

I just remember the Ringmasters, Flite Streaks, and the Scientific Logs (note logs, not hollow logs---I don't remember hollowing them out! Could explain some gliding angles though!) like the Red Devil and Zig Zag.

Maybe I lead a sheltered life!

Alan,

Here is a link to photos of the Snapper. Scroll down towards the bottom of the page.

http://www.freewebs.com/minnesotamodeler/halfastunt.htm

Ray produces a great kit of the Snapper, and mine is one of the best kits I've ever owned!

Bill

I second the Top Flite 1/2A Hawker Hurricane as my best 1/2 A model. Didn't have the other two in the series but am sure they would be right up there with the Hurricane. Mine was powered by a McCoy .049. Even made a larger Hurricane ws 36" based on the 1/2 A model.   Take Care, Mike

Was that the one with the hollow foam wing?  If so, I can second that nomination!

Not a great picture but here is what the Walker ad looked like for the foamies.

Robert

A lot of the Walker stuff has been preserved but I have not seen anything more except this ad in one of my old magazines.
Hopefully someone out there has one of these and can trace or scan the parts because I bet there are no full size plans still around showing all parts full size. I don't mind if someone can prove me wrong on this point.

Robert

What does the Spook look like?

To me it was the Scientific Sport Racer.  It was the first successful plane for me.  When I get ready for another one they were no longer in production.  Then it was the 1/2A Snapper and the little Omega combat wing for 1/2A.  Too bad I don't have the little catalog that America's Hobby Center used to send out.  Pictures of each and every plane they carried.  Have fun,  DOC Holliday

Actually learned to fly on an Enterprise P-51.  Used an O.K. Cub .099, which isn't technically a 1/2 A, but I still have the engine, which I bough back about 1949 or 50.  Last time I used it, felt it had less power than any of my Black Widow .049s.  Got a lot of flying on it.  I still have the very deteriorated magazine in my files, and I think I also have a copy.  All sheet, buildable in a couple hours.

Actualy, a 1/2A I had a lot of fun flying was the Li'l PT, from a full size plan in the 1962 MAN Annual..

BTW, I believe I have a NIB Walker Firebird or Firebat buried somewhere in my attic.  2 piece molded foam wing, profile fuse.

Sometimes I wish I had purchased the Walker .065 engine when I had a chance.  Thought it was a littl hoakey at the tme, with its latex tube and squeeze bulb for operating a clapper on the engine to give a variable speed.

Best performing sheetwood scientific was hands down, the "All American Boy". I used it to learn to loop, figure eights, inverted flight, and standard wing overs, before I got my first "big" model, a Sterling P-51.

It was light enough that it generally bounced when it had a meeting with "terra firma".

The best 2 were made believe it or not by Sterling and neither of them were the Space kaydet or the baby Ringmaster. About 1961/2? they came out with a P-47 and a Grumman Hellcat. Both were profile with a 20 inch built up wing. Probably the most fun I ever had with a 1/2A model. My opinion of course.
Dennis

My favorite was a veco scout with my buddy's rr 1 on it.  Looked like small chief. George

I had a Lil' Jumpin' Bean with a hot azz Wen-Mac Mk. XI on Fox Missle Mist that was my favorite, but I suspect that a Guillow's Baby Barnstormer w/ a Holland Hornet was really the ticket for the skilled builders/fliers of the day.

My very first "flight" was with my cousin's Li'l Jumpin' Bean with a Babe-Bee motor. My family from PA was visiting their family in FL for a family vacation. My first flight was on a baseball field, with take-off from the clay area between second and third. I managed to get the plane around about three or four laps, while going up and down wildly. Culminating with a one-point landing into the hard clay. The plane was badly damaged (but later repaired), so the look on my cousin's face at impact was a stark opposite to my big smile. That one flight got me hooked on flying c/l. Later that day, we went to a hobby shop and I bought an F4F Wildcat kit. I started building it right away, while we were staying at my cousin's house. I finished the painting after arriving back home. I bought a Babe-Bee motor at the J.C. Penneys department store, and was lucky to complete the first flight of the Wildcat without a crash. My c/l flying went on happily from there. I later started a flying club called Flying FunLimited. We made membership cards using a printing press that a friend got through the mail with cereal boxtops. We got discounts at the local hobby shops. Sometimes a local dad with a van took some of us over to a flying club in another town, where we would see how many planes we could get up in the circle at the same time. I think the most we had up at once was 14. We had a lot of fun.

No, I don't remember for sure.  It looked like the 1/2A profile that Brodak is selling now.  I think it was probably made by Sterling.

Dave

Hi George, Thanks for the information.

Yep, a hollow log.  Looked great and flew even better.  It was my transition from the Cox pt19s, p51s plastics to balsa.  Like Guillow's ads said "Balsa flys better".

I had many plastic ARFs, then a Lil'toot, a Little Jumping bean, A ranger( high wing free flight and control line) but the one that I got really pretty decent flights out of was a hand me down Stuntman 23 If I recall the name. Flat wing, with a Golden bee .049. It actually flew decent and made many trips to the field. Then I graduated to REAL models, lol,, my goldberg Shoestring with a Mcoy 35,,

Back then I really couldn't fly well enough to tell the difference (probably still don't)  but how about the Scientific 1/2A Kingpin,  built up wing, profile body  and a fairly capable flyer ??

Dalton H.

Scientific super stuntmaster and a baby bee. I think thats the engine, 049 with the little tank

Tony, the Baby Era is a super looking model. I have seen a few on that auction site and grabbed a couple of pictures but that is all I have of this model. Looks very easy to build As most were of that type and time. This is what the instruction sheet looks like.  I do wish I had some good pictures of the wonderful box art on top! Could be I might try one of these myself.

Robert

Sure do, at least the Scientific models.  Been tempted to send in an order.  I also have a JPG of one of the early ones, thinking of hacking out a 1 X 2 plank.  Also, thinking of using the Baby Era kit I have and using it as a pattern to try my own reproduction of the Baby Era Bipe.

Also have a number of files from old Musciano articles that make some bigger logs.  Even have a few of his old Model Boat articles.  Also I think one or two FF designs of his.

My Boo-Boo.  The 1" X 2"s I have are for carving Rubber Model Props.  I also have some 24" 2 X 2" balsa chunks for logs.  Have I ever mentioned I'm not fussy about what I fly?  I have about 16 flyable RC, 29 CL and over 40 FF and Rocket models. Also over 140 assorted kits for my retirement.

Seems kind of funny.  Now that I'm retiredd, I seem to have less time for building and flying than I did when I was raising a family and working 50 to 70 hours per week.

Lil Satan

I've only built one Lil Satan, never got to fly it. A couple of kids came by while I was pre-running the Babe Bee. They were very interested and after getting them to promise they would fly it, I gave it to them.

Geez, that was 40 years ago!!!

George

Since we're on the subject

When I was 13, I went to the LHS and they had a Lil Satan with a combat streamer on it, first combat plane I'd ever seen (I was sheltered apparently).  Well I had to have one.  Built it up, probably did my best job ever on alignment, then covered it with a silk scarf of moms.  When she found she went ballistic, screaming and yelling, which of course set me off (hey I was 13, what can I say I felt entitled).  I proceeded to grab a hold of the silk with pliers and rip it off, throwing it back at her.  Kinda destroyed the model in the process.

Never got another one.  I wonder why?

 The Goldberg Stuntman 23 was the best, easy assembly and stuntable flyer around 1972.
I taught my whole neighborhood to fly on a design of my own and before long I had a basement full of kids building 1/2A kits. We had a blast. The Stuntman would slug through the pattern fairly comfortably given its board wing. The fact that it had decent wing area more so than airfoil seemed to be a step up from the ealier hollow logs. I had a Zig Zag, the Stunt Trainer, The Lil Zipper, several of my own creations back then also.

When I was a Sr. I was given a choice of any project for a final in Art Class. So I built a half A with flaps and a black widow for power. Brought  it in to class, gave a presentation and then out back for a flying demo. Did a reverse wingover, loops and figure 8s....got an A+ and my Senior year of Art class was over. The drafting teacher came out and I dont think it hurt my grade with him either. He asked if I built it from plans. When I told him no, I just built it from scratch he just grinned...and handed it back to me.

Combat Kittens and a plane called a Big Otto.

Lil' Jumpin Bean with a Black Widow. It died a horrible death after impersonating a lawn dart, I still have the pieces 28 years later !

I remember flying a Jumping Bean all day with some of the Phillips Bros kids in Chicago before we moved to California in '66. It flew great and the Cox engine was easy to run, even for us kids. We just kept taking turns with it, and there were about five of us. It broke the elevator horn once, but that was repaired, the only damage in a whole day of kids less than 10 yrs flying it in grass!
I always thought it was the best 1/2A flyer I ever knew, and built one when I was in high school just for fun. It hangs on my shop wall unflown.
Chris...

Lil' Jumping Bean/Black Widow about 1963.  When my oldest son got started, he got one, and we still have it along with that original Black Widow.   My *favorite* was the Scientific King Cobra.  27" built up wing and tricycle LG.  I finally found an original kit in the basement and threaten to copy it!

Mongo

Jim Walker Firebird, first outside loop!

There was one 1/2A design I built a number of.  Not a kit, but still one of the best  1/2A flyers I ever had.  I was reminded of it last week from seeing a nicely done build and fly video on one of the MA websites from a young Brasillian.  The plane was the Li'l PT.  Forget who designed it, but it was a full size plan in the March 1960 MAN.  Remember when they were actually a full service model airplane magazine?  Very smooth flyer, compared to many others I had.  Think it would have done very well with a Golden Bee or Black Widow and 42' .008 steel lines.  A piece of the sig airfoiled 3" balsa for glider wings would save a bit of work, since instead of a flat plank wing like many, the plans called for sanding the 1/8" into an airfoil shape.

I used to build and fly them, with the impatience of youth, so rapidly neither the glue nor the dope was fully dry.  Did my first loops and wingovers with them.  Tried inverted flight and outside loops, but for some reason, the engine would quit, and the tank would be dry when the plane came down, with the Babe Bees.  The plans (I have some of the original mag, and I've scanned the plans to a computer file) show both tank moung and beam mount.  Hmmm!.  Beam Mount.  Norvel or AME .061.  Or Tee Dee .049.  Another future project?

Sterling 24" profile Eindecker w/golden bee.  Early 1970s.  Red aerogloss with white enamel squares for the maltese crosses.  Looked very sharp until that Cox 25% nitro fuel hit that enamel.  Kinda runny   Oh well, it still flew VERY well.  Another fun one was a Scientific P-40 hollow log.  The kit included these little steel eyelets for the leadouts.  First two flights the up line broke (dacron), FULL DOWN.   After repairing it the SECOND time, it occurred to me that those little metal brackets were sawing through those dacron leadouts   Once I replaced them (eyelets) with ply, I never had any other problems.  I think I saw the wing out in the shop last summer...I know I've got some block balsa around somewhere.....

While over the years I have used Dacron leadouts, I never ran them through eyelets.  I either used L bent solder lugs or a drilled piece of ply.  But the last 10 or 15 years, I used .020 music wire or left over .015 stranded control line.  In fact, I gave up on Dacron altogether after having a Dacron UP line break while pulling out of a low level loop during a flying demo for a Cub Scout pack.  Just use the left overs I still have for wrapping, figure 8 hinges, or rigging when I build sailing shipsor ships in the bottle.

John, wonderful stories! Thanks for those. 
Do you happen to have any pictures of these early models? I wish I had taken more myself.

Regarding the Lil Zipper. was it one of those that had the built up fuse with a vac formed top?

Robert

You know...I think I do but have to go through the family albums. Some stuff was on 8mm film so have to find the VHS we made of those....I think I still have a working VHS...lemme check...

Lil Jumpin Bean.